*****SPAM***** Tyrannosaurus - scavenger, my craggy butte

[zone65@bigpond.com]

On Monday, February 16, 2004, at 09:46  PM, Craven, David wrote:

> I've always thought the Rex would be kind of like the lion in africa. 
> A bit
> of both. Quite capable of hunting it's own food, but not averse to
> scavenging if it's easy meat.

Seems highly likely, as this is true of most meat-eaters. Apart from 
vultures and the Tasmanian devil, I can't think of any extant carnivore 
that is primarily a carrion-eater. Even the much-maligned hyena kills 
most of its own food, except in the rare case that they're outnumbered 
by lions to freeload from (it's usually the reverse). Most meat-eaters 
would be full-time scavengers if possible, just as most humans would 
prefer to get free groceries rather than have to work for them... but 
there's seldom a free lunch.

So none of today's beasts approach T. rex in size... but even if it 
couldn't run, that doesn't preclude it from being a highly-effective 
ambush predator - much like crocodilians and the Komodo dragon, today's 
closest analogs to the Tyrannosaurus. If you were gonna take down a 
Triceratops, you'd really want to do it from behind. Horner cites T. 
rex's probable keen sense of smell as evidence of scavengry, but 
there's good reason why an ambush-attacker would benefit greatly from 
that.

> The "Either/Or" mentality in palaeontology really annoys me sometimes!


For sure. Dinos must have been more than the superficial stereotypes 
they're commonly portrayed as.

Peter Markmann